From its crystalline bay window façade to its irregular setbacks, the Bank of America Headquarters rises as a sculptural form in San Francisco’s Financial District. The office complex consists of a 52-story tower and a glass pavilion, atop a four-level base nestled into a steep street-level grade. At 779 feet tall, it was the tallest building in San Francisco when it was completed in 1969 and remains among the city’s tallest today.
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Originally built as the headquarters of Bank of America and since renamed 555 California Street, the design was a collaboration between Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; and consulting architect Pietro Belluschi. The skyscraper is characterized by vertical repetition: faceted bronze-tinted bay windows—a regional design tradition—undulate across a facade clad in polished carnelian granite. At once smooth and textured, this continuous, shimmering surface mediates the scale of the building through its rhythm, while upper-floor setbacks underscore the tower’s sculptural quality, evoking the jagged rock formations of the Sierra Nevada.
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The tower is situated at the southwest corner of the full-block site, yielding 50 percent of the site to a granite-paved plaza. 140 feet back from California Street, the clear glass and bronze aluminum main entrance is set in a deep arcade beneath the setback of thetower’s second floor. Below the plaza, a pedestrian concourse with entrances from three streets contains a 220-seat auditorium, and a variety of shops, as well as a connection to the four-story, 30,000-square-foot pavilion at the northeast corner of the site. A three-level parking garage for 420 cars and loading docks are located below the concourse level. The entire complex—from the 1.5 million-square-foot tower to the pavilion and basement levels—totals nearly 1.8 million square feet.
A monument to its picturesque setting, 555 California endures as a Class A office building and as a symbol of San Francisco.
The tower has become, and will remain, a key architectural monument in San Francisco.
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